Seven Products that Give Materials New Life

Old wood, glass, and paper make an encore appearance in tables, chairs, and luminaires.

Reclaimed and recycled materials can be a chore to source, but they allow designers to bring to life remnants of the past by way of new design. These products reroute materials otherwise headed for landfill to your next project.

NewspaperWood, Mieke Meijer
Designed by Dutch studio Mieke Meijer for furniture brand Vij5, NewspaperWood is a series of cabinets, jewelry, and tables crafted from boards made of recycled newspapers folded to emulate a wood grain. The boards are now offered in pale yellow, orange, green, blue, and pink hues thanks to the addition of four papers—Asharq Al-Awsat, Eindhovens Dagblad, the Financial Times, and Italia Oggi—whose news is printed on colorful pulp.

Credit: Vij5

Stacked Lights, Ma’ayan Pesach and Sander Wassink
Designers Ma’ayan Pesach and Sander Wassink, recent graduates of Design Academy Eindhoven in The Netherlands, collected a variety of used glass vases, tumblers, and bowls to create Stacked Lights. The pieces are attached using a colored resin. Once assembled, the luminaires are lamped with an LED and are suspended from thin copper wires. The pair debuted the series in a 17-piece installation at Salone in April.

Credit: JW Kaldenbach

Su Collection, Emeco and Nendo
Hanover, Pa.–based Emeco, maker of the classic Navy Chair, is collaborating with Japanese design studio Nendo on a series of chairs, stools, and tables made from sustainable materials. The Su Collection, which the company says draws from the minimalist Japanese design aesthetic, features Emeco’s trademark seat supported by wide, slender legs. The seat is available in three materials: reclaimed oak; concrete comprising 50% reclaimed glass bottles and calcium sulfoaluminate cement (shown), which requires less energy to manufacture than Portland cement; and recycled polyethylene that comes in red, light gray, and dark gray. The legs are made of recycled aluminum or reclaimed oak.

Credit: Emeco

Color Cladding, Windfall Lumber
Windfall Lumber is partnering with paint manufacturer Yolo Colorhouse to use its zero-VOC paints on a line of reclaimed interior cladding. The result: subtle but saturated combinations of the paints’ vibrant hues and the woods’ natural tones that can be mixed and matched. Color Cladding comprises FSC-certified Douglas fir and hemlock as well as glue-laminated timbers that are reclaimed from industrial, agricultural, and residential applications in the Pacific Northwest. Twelve colors are available.

Credit: Windfall Lumber

Obsidian Mirror, Studio Drift
Dutch designers Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta of Studio Drift cast this mirror from synthetic obsidian. The vitrified ash and other residue that make up its glossy black body derive from a chemical-waste recycling process that involves heating the waste to extract raw materials such as gold, mercury, and silver in liquid form. The Obsidian Mirror debuted at Salone in April.

Credit: Studio Drift

Constructed Surface Table, Rick Tegelaar
Dutch designer Rick Tegelaar crafted the Constructed Surface Table using plywood left over from the furniture manufacturing process. By assembling the piece in a herringbone pattern, the table can be made in a range of thicknesses while using even the smaller pieces of the residual material.

Credit: Rick Tegelaar

BuzziMilk, BuzziSpace
Furniture design studio BuzziSpace enhances the pastoral milking stool in BuzziMilk, which features a fourth leg for added stability and a plush cushion for comfort. The design team also flattened the legs’ traditionally round profiles. The legs are offered in oak, walnut, and ash. Among the upholstery options for the chair’s cushion is BuzziFabric, which is made of recycled wool.